Cruise ship adrift in the Baltic

A cruise ship with 1,800 passengers on board is being towed to safety after spending much of Sunday adrift without power in the Baltic Sea.
MSC Opera suffered a major electrical failure un the early hours of Sunday morning. Rescue tug Svitzer Trym is now towing the 60,000-ton ship to the Swedish port of Nynashamn, near Stockholm.
The ship should have spent the day in port at Copenhagen, Denmark, but instead was adrift off the coast of the island of Gotland. It is now expected to reach the Swedish mainland by about 11.00 am on Monday instead of sailing for Southampton, where it was due to arrive on Tuesday.
Opera left the UK on Saturday May 7 for a 10-day voyage which had called at Amsterdam, Stockholm, Helsinki and St Petersburg. There is no word yet on how the next cruise – another 10-nighter to the Baltic from Southampton – will be affected, but passengers currently on board have been told they will be compensated.
A spokesman for the Swedish coastguard said “It appears that there was a complete electrical failure. In that situation, the engines do not work.”
MSC is now faced with transporting the passengers from Nynashamn back to the UK, and making alternative arrangements for the 1,800 passengers due to board the ship in Southampton on Tuesday.